The Parts of the Sun

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The sun is a star, just like the other stars we see at night. The difference is distance -- the other stars we see are light-years away, while our sun is only about 8 light minutes away -- many thousands of times closer.

­Officially, the sun is classified as a G2 type star, based on its temperature and the wavelengths or spectrum of light that it emits. There are lots of G2s out there, and Earth's sun is merely one of billions of st­ars that orbit the center of our galaxy, made up of the same substance and components.

T­he sun is composed of gas. It has no solid surface. However, it still has a defined structure. The three major structural areas of the sun are shown in the upper half of Figure 1. They include:

Doomsday theorists might expect 2012 to be a year of ray-gun-style solar flares, but their assumptions aren't at all backed up by science. What are solar flares, and what happens if they really do hit the Earth?